


To Weave the Strands of Fate

by Llama1412



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Body Horror, Fate & Destiny, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29723466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama1412/pseuds/Llama1412
Summary: There is a tradition in Velen. Whenever a child is born within Velen, a lock of their hair is cut off and gifted to the Ladies of the Wood. According to whispered legends, the Lady Weavess could add the hair to her loom and thereby change their Fate.
Relationships: Crones & Velen (The Witcher), Iorveth/Vernon Roche, Vernon Roche & Vernon Roche's Mother
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	To Weave the Strands of Fate

**Author's Note:**

> This prologue legit came to me in full sentences as I woke up 2 hours before my alarm and I had to write it down before passing out again. But now it has spawned a whole story that I'm excited to share with y'all! The Crones really didn't get built out enough as villains/characters for me, and I loooove playing in the spaces that canon left, so... this is gonna be fun. XD

Vernon had always been able to feel the magic in the world. He couldn’t utilize it, not exactly. Not more than  _ everyone _ could. As he grew older, he began to recognize it, though. It was in the small things – the boy who’d just barely scored the winning goal in the game, the girl who’d just barely finished her test before the bell, the woman who’d just gotten inside a moment before the downpour started, the man who’d finished tending the field moments before his boss came to check on him. Most people assumed the magic was luck, but Vernon could  _ see _ it, could see the traces of it everywhere he looked, sparkling around people and animals and plants and even inanimate things, all carrying a trace of the magic that flowed through the world.

His mother said it was because he was special. Because he’d been chosen, long ago, before he could remember. She said that every villager in the town he’d been born in had gifted locks of hair to the Ladies of the Wood and that that was why he could see the magic – because they’d  _ chosen _ him.

To him, that sounded amazing. He didn’t remember ever seeing the Ladies of the Wood, but they had chosen him! 

To his mother, it was a source of constant worry. After all, what use could the Ladies of the Wood have for a nobody whoreson born in the swamps of Velen?

When her son accidentally saved the lives of the royal family and was pressed into service, she got her answer.  _ This _ was what the Ladies wanted.  _ This _ was why they’d chosen her son.

Vernon found the magic of the world miraculous and stupendous, but Eliza feared it. Because the Ladies of the Wood could change the fates of any who they held a lock of hair from. Legend said the Weavess would set the hair upon her loom and rewrite their destinies.

Eliza wondered what Vernon’s fate would have been if she’d never let them take his hair, if she’d given birth to him anywhere else. But ifs wouldn’t put food on the table, so all she could do was advise caution to a teenage boy who’d just discovered a whole new world of power and privilege open to him.

More than anything, she dreamed of a world where her son was simply her son and nothing magical at all made him special. A world where he was special because he was  _ Vernon,  _ and not because the Ladies of the Wood had chosen him, like they chose all the people within their power. 

Life in the swamps was harsh, and the Ladies provided relief and succor, and when she’d lived in Velen, she  _ had _ believed. But now, now after years in Vizima, Eliza wasn’t so sure. No creature used their power without a  _ reason _ in this world, and she did not trust whatever ‘reason’ meant using her son.

  
Perhaps one day, she’d actually be able to  _ do _ something about it.


End file.
